Book review: Empire of Storms by Sarah J. Maas

Finished reading: 16 March 2024
Rating out of five: 4.5/5

​The fifth book in the Throne of Glass series, Empire of Storms follows Aelin and her squad in trying to bring allies (and enemies) together to fight against the might of not one, but two, big baddies—Erawan and Maeve.

This book is chock-a-block full of plot twists, and this constant humming and foreshadowing that something big is coming. And, following the incredible crescendo in Queen of Shadows, this instalment keeps the pace and intensity up. And, I’ll be honest, it’s actually quite overwhelming.

You know the drill by now: There’s spoilers, so don’t read this if you’re still catching up, or you plan or reading the Throne of Glass series later on. Otherwise, if you’re here for the ride, let’s get into it.

I’m not even sure where to begin, or how to progress this review. This isn’t because of a bad book—it’s actually the complete opposite: This was a fantastic book and instalment to the series, but it's jampacked with so much. So, instead of trying to provide a really high-level, non-spoiler summary of this book, I want to focus on some key moments in the plot, and the characters that come out of the woodwork in this one.

We’re not unfamiliar with the ghostly flashbacks and the inclusion of ghostly/ethereal historical figures in this series. Right from Throne of Glass, we’re introduced to characters from the past that played a key role in how things have unfolded and why Aelin, Aedion, Rowan, Dorian, and all these characters are experiencing what they are.

In this book, we learn a whole lot more about this through visions and flashbacks, and a trip through a magical mirror, where Aelin and Manon learn a whole lot about the choices of these key figures, and how this can be unravelled for the sake of the world around them and the ones they love.

Well, for Manon, maybe the term ‘love’ is a strong one. But, to focus on her for a moment, I think it’s fair to say that Manon is by far my favourite character in this series. And, the story arc we follow in Empire of Storms with her and her Thirteen is brilliant textbook character development.

So, going back to the first line of the previous paragraph, by the end of this book, I don’t actually think the term ‘love’ is a strong one for Manon, which shows just how far her character comes in all this.
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Before this review turns into just me fangirling over Manon, let’s turn our focus elsewhere, which for me has to be the bringing together of allies and saying ‘hello!’ to a number of characters we’ve met previously—and this is where reading The Assassin’s Blade is important.

We reunite with Lysandra in Queen of Shadows after first meeting her in The Assassin’s Blade. There’s something really empowering about reading the perspective of a character who was once seen as some powerless woman in pretty dresses to being a critical, strong member of the gang utilising her powers. In this instance, it's shapeshifting, and I don’t know why but reading how Lysandra spends probably more time shapeshifted into an animal rather than in her human form while the group travels is so relatable to me. I, too, would be flying around or perched somewhere as a bird rather than walking on foot with the group, or cuddling up as a leopard or something like that.

Another character we reunite with since The Assassin’s Blade is Captain Rolfe in Skull’s Bay. As a reminder, this was the dude who had hired Celaena and Sam to support in a shipment, which ended up being slaves. Celaena (aka. Aelin) ruined these plans alongside Sam, and the Cap'n wasn’t super happy about it.

So, you can imagine that when Aelin and the Cap'n meet again, it’s not exactly full of happiness. What’s interesting is watching the dynamics at play. Aelin plays into herself as Celaena, then Lysandra pretends to be Aelin (great foreshadowing, by the way), and then there are negotiations, threats, and a whole lot more that leads to an epic, on-the-water fight where we see Aelin truly dig deep into her powers… and maybe lose a little bit of her control.

But it doesn’t end there. We also reunite with Ansel of Briarcliff. She’s another character from The Assassin’s Blade who had become friends with Aelin (Celaena at the time) while Aelin had been sent to the Red Desert with the Silent Assassins. 

If you recall, Ansel betrayed the Silent Assassins to Lord Berick, but had done Aelin the ‘kindness' of poisoning her when she was away from the Silent Assassins’ fortress to avoid her being injured in the fight. Anyway, in the end, Aelin exercises mercy against Ansel, and between the end of The Assassin and the Desert and Throne of Glass, she fights Lord Loch for the throne of the Western Wastes and wins, becoming the ruler.

We find out in Empire of Storms that Aelin using Ansel’s name in the fighting pits in Rifthold was actually a way to get a message to Ansel. This results in Ansel moving her army, and then meeting Aelin on a beach, where they finally reunite.

It feels a bit like 4D Chess, right?

But it doesn’t end there. That’s right—we also reunite with the Silent Assassin’s as well! And, what we end up finding out is that:
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• Aelin is calling in debts with all these groups and people she’s interacted with over the course of the series to build the force she needs to defeat Maeve and Erawan
• Aelin always tends to get her way and always find a solution, even when it seems impossible.

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And, I feel like it would be a disservice to not mention, once again, that Maas is so good at building up to incredible endings. This book is no different, with the ending casting a bit of doubt over that second point above. How? Well, you’ll just need to read the book to find out.

So, what did I like? It’s really difficult for me to hone in on something specific that I particularly liked, which sounds weird since I gave this book a rating of 4.5 out of 5. The thing is that this book is epic and contains so much information and keeps the pacing at a really good level that it kept me going. I also appreciated the callback to characters and places from previous books. There’s something satisfying about being able to link characters or plot twists to previous storylines and seeing all these pieces coming together.

Which leads me into what I didn’t like. I mentioned it in my Queen of Shadows review, but there are so many perspectives in this book that it became a bit overwhelming. There is so much happening in this story, and we’ve come a long way since Throne of Glass with everything we’ve learned and where the story is going. And this then leads itself to having so many perspectives because there’s a lot to cover in so many different areas.

For what it’s worth, I think Maas does a brilliant job writing omnisciently. But when I think back on previous instalments of the Throne of Glass series, and how we at one point only had a couple of perspectives, and it’s now like… doubled or more—I just don’t know if we need that many perspectives.

But obviously this doesn’t include Manon in that conversation. I will forever be thankful for her perspective in these books, and the interesting lore, personalities and dynamics of the Ironteeth and Crochan Witches.

One name that doesn’t get a mention is Chaol, and that’s because he’s skedaddled off with Nesryn to the southern continent after the events at the end of Queen of Shadows. But, don’t worry, we hear everything about him and what he’s been up to this whole time in the next instalment--Tower of Dawn.
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And with that, I’ll leave my review here. What did you think of Empire of Storms? Were you a bit overwhelmed like me, or did you think this action-packed instalment balanced it well? Let me know in the comments!